“Uniswap V2, the second iteration of the Uniswap protocol, has been deployed to the Ethereum mainnet!

An audit report and formal verification has already been released and the Uniswap V2 Bug Bounty has been running for over a month. Developers can begin building on Uniswap V2 immediately!

Uniswap V2 has many new features and technical improvements compared with Uniswap V1 including:

• ERC20 / ERC20 Pairs
• Price Oracles
• Flash Swaps“

See Also: Uniswap Exchange
See Also: Uniswap Analytics

---

“Synthetix is putting over $40,000 in crypto on the line to entice users to try out the faster beta of its decentralized exchange (DEX). But the real reason traders might be interested over time is because this project could demo a world where DEXs become feasible at scale.

Synthetix’s beta relies on a deployment of the Optimistic Virtual Machine (OVM) from Optimism, the company behind the latest scaling and usability solution for Ethereum. Synthetix teamed with Optimism to create a DEX that could be competitive in terms of speed with traditional crypto exchanges.

I think optimistic rollup is the first Ethereum layer 2 solution that checks all the boxes for DeFi.”

---

Argent Launches V1 Smart Wallet

“Argent is now the easiest way to access DeFi, starting with TokenSets, PoolTogether, Aave, Uniswap V2 liquidity pools, Compound, Maker and Kyber. Earn interest and invest; borrow, store and send. No seed phrase. No gas.

Non-custodial no longer means no safety net. With Argent you can lock and unlock, approve large transfers and automatically block anything above your daily limit.“

See Also: Argent

---

“Put simply, it provides best trade execution. An AI platform plugs into a network of exchanges and dark pools, providing the best available prices and minimal slippage. The idea, explains the firm’s website, is to provide the base trading layer that mainstream financial institutions need to delve into the digital asset class.

The platform provides a solution to wash trading, where exchanges or crypto projects trade against themselves to inflate volumes, drive up prices and dump assets on unsuspecting investors. It’s a known problem in crypto.

Wash trading is a pain-point with our institutional clientele and systemic data misreporting precludes mainstream institutions from touching the space.”

See Also: Bakkt Announces New Insurance Coverage, Claims More Than 70 Custody Clients

---

“Ethereum’s premier coin mixing service is now permissionless.

Tornado Cash, a privacy tool for obfuscating the history of Ether (ETH) transactions, completed a cryptographic process known as a trusted setup ceremony on May 10. The MPC and Monday’s contract update effectively break up the developer key by creating a crowdsourced smart contract without a private key. 

The ceremony, relying on a cryptographic method known as multi-party computation (MPC), makes Tornado Cash “completely trustless and unstoppable.”“

---

---

“Within days of launching Reddit’s Ethereum-based Community Points rewards system has seen more than 10,000 addresses created. Perhaps surprisingly, over 80% of wallets created on the testnet so far represent the Fortnight community.

8,666 wallets have been created to hold r/fortnightBR’s Bricks, while just 2,073 Redditors have embraced r/cryptocurrency’s Moons. 2,295 transactions have been executed by Moon wallets, while Brick wallets have produced 9,584.”

---

“From April 11 until May 14, Bitcoin (BTC) transaction fees increased by more than 1,250% from $0.38 to $5.16. Fees are up by more than one-third since the halving, which precipitated an increase in transaction costs of 105% over three days.”

See Also: Bitcoin Demand Pushes Tether Below $1 for Longest Stretch Since March
See Also: Andreessen Horowitz Forecasts Fourth Crypto Bull Cycle

---

“Blockchain venture studio Thesis has put a pause on deposits into tBTC, its new platform meant to put BTC on Ethereum so BTC can be used in decentralized finance (DeFi).

The Thesis team cited a bug, but is not disclosing details until all funds have been safely withdrawn from this iteration of tBTC. Luongo said the priority now was to further enhance the security of the system before announcing a timeline to re-deploy it.

While the tBTC dapp was being tested over the weekend in its alpha version an issue in the dapp that was missed by our security audit was found by two of our contributors, and we decided to pause deposits for now to ensure the safety of funds.”

---

“The plaintiff accuses BitMEX’s parent company, HDR Global Trading, and the exchange’s top executives — Arthur Hayes, Ben Delo and Samuel Reed — of engaging in or abetting multiple crimes that include racketeering, money laundering, wire fraud and operating an unlicensed money transmitting business.

The document claims that BitMEX weaponizes deliberate server freezes and uses fraudulent “system overload” events to accept or reject specific trading orders during volatile market conditions in order to exacerbate price fluctuations and trigger maximum liquidations. The lawsuit further points to the defendants’ own admission that the exchange operates its own for-profit trading desk, which purportedly trades against BitMEX’s own customers on the platform.“

---

“Visa head of crypto Cuy Sheffield tweeted on May 18 that he does not believe central banks are interested in providing a central bank digital currency (CBDC) directly to consumers.

If a central bank decides to offer a digital wallet directly to consumers then by default CBDC and the central bank would have to become a household brand but this approach seems unlikely to be taken seriously by most major central banks.”

See Also: Austrian Bank Raiffeisen Works on National Digital Currency Pilot
See Also: Japan’s Top Credit Card Issuer Building Blockchain Payment System

---

“Free TON, a decentralized blockchain network derived from Telegram’s TON blockchain, is launching the first community contests to power its network. Starting Monday, users, developers and validators are invited to participate in three separate contests, with Free TON planning to distribute thousands of TON Crystals, or Tons, as rewards.

Free TON contests are the only way to receive TON Crystals for now, which means that Tons can only be distributed among those who have contributed to the network.

There are more than five billion TON Crystal tokens, with 85% of them planned to be distributed to Free TON partners and users and 10% going to developers. The remaining 5% is bound for the community’s validators.”

JK Rowling Asks About Bitcoin. Accursed Crypto Twitter Scares Her Off

See Also: Elon Musk Reveals BTC Holdings in Bitcoin Discussion With J.K. Rowling

---

“The survey, conducted in February, found only one “small African central bank” would use blockchain as the basis for a CBDC.

71% of respondents said they would consider building a CBDC on DLT. DLT includes private and permissioned networks, shared with a handful of known and trusted nodes.”

See Also: Visa Patent Filing Would Allow Central Banks to Mint Digital Fiat Currencies Using Blockchain
See Also: Crypto.com Rolls Out Visa Card to 31 European Nations

---

“Temasek, one of Singapore’s two government-owned investment vehicles, is among the latest companies to join the Libra Association. The addition may help explain why the Singapore dollar has figured prominently in Libra’s plans from the early days.

Temasek manages $216 billion in assets for Singapore’s government and has previously shown a penchant for blockchain ventures.

Our participation in the Libra Association as a member will allow us to contribute towards a regulated global network for cost-effective retail payments.

Libra also announced Thursday two cryptocurrency-focused investment firms in San Francisco had joined the association: Paradigm and Slow Ventures.”

---

“A month on from Binance buying CoinMarketCap for a rumored $400 million, the crypto price aggregation site has unveiled an exchange ranking system that gives its new owner the best score possible. CoinMarketCap’s new metric focuses on web traffic.

Now, I can finally have a clear view of the field and see who the real upcoming exchanges are, lol.

Coincidentally, Binance achieved a perfect web score factor – 1,000 out of a possible 1,000. Decrypt reported Binance had been ranked 15 under CoinMarketCap’s old exchange metric system.

Lol indeed.”

---

“Bithumb officially announced that they will be delisting Monero (XMR) from their trading platform as of June 1.

Recently, Monero has been in the spotlight due to reports of Telegram users using XMR to purchase illegal pornographic material — much of which involved minors.

We are conducting a technical review related to securing traceability through ongoing discussions with each foundation on virtual assets with similar characteristics other than Monero.

Huobi announced April 12 that they would be ending support for Monero amid the scandal.”

---

“While Facebook and Telegram have either delayed or cancelled their cryptocurrency projects, Reddit is going full steam ahead. If this trial is successful, it could send a clear message to other apps around the world that they should follow in its stead. And at the same time, it’s an exciting test for crypto in the real world.

The beta test is currently in operation through summer 2020. The new system will start with two communities—r/CryptoCurrency and r/FortniteBR—with tokens aptly named “Moon” and “Bricks.””

---

“CryptoKitties, has just launched 100 tokens depicting ‘Catterina’ — a new collectible drawn by brand ambassador, Momo Wang — on the Winklevoss-backed exchange Nifty.

Wang is best known for drawing a cartoon rabbit, Tuzki, that is shared millions of times each day across Facebook and WeChat. Within approximately three minutes of launching, the 100 tokens depicting Wang’s ‘Catterina’ had sold out.

The most significant progress made by the NFT sector appears to be taking place in the blockchain gaming industry — where tokenized items that can be privately owned, purchased, and traded are becoming embedded into games.”

See Also: Nifty Exchange

---

“Developers who use Arkane Network tools will thus be able to integrate the Atari Token within their games, allowing it to be used for buying, selling, and trading in-game assets.

With this partnership, we will bring game developers, the gaming community, and the Atari brand together to embrace blockchain technology as a solution to record digital assets and value transactions.

Atari is currently holding a closed presale for its token, with further presale rounds coming ahead of a public sale this summer.”

See Also: AMD-backed marketplace Robot Cache lets you ‘mine’ video games

---

“The majority of TON investors purportedly decided to get their money back as soon as possible, choosing the 72% option. As reported, some investors have already received their reimbursement.

The decision is mainly based on concerns over potential lawsuits from U.S. investors.”

See Also: Pantera Capital Founder Says Regulators ‘Triggered’ by Grams and Libra

---

“Signs indicate that Venezuela’s state-backed cryptocurrency quietly underwent a hard fork earlier this month.

The official Petro block explorer now lists May 5, 2020, as the date that its genesis block was mined. Other block explorers record Oct.13, 2018, as the date for Petro’s genesis block — suggesting that there is more than one Petro chain currently in existence.”

---

See Also: Empowerment vs Power: Redesigning for a Thriving Economy (Video)

“Wednesday evening, Reddit revealed its plans to utilize the Ethereum network to incentivize the creation of “quality posts and comments.” The points can be spent on premium features and used as a measure of reputation in the community.

In addition, users will be able to leave a tip for comments they like or posts they see as valuable. Users will also be able to transfer community points directly to another Reddit member’s Vault as well as any Ethereum wallet address.

Community points are controlled by the user where users retain full control, meaning moderators nor Reddit itself can take points away. The r/Cryptocurrency and r/FortNiteBR subreddits introduced the new tokens, called moons and bricks respectively.”

See Also: Customizable Eth2 Staking Calculator Launched

---

“The Proof of Stake Alliance (POSA), an industry advocacy group, is publishing a series of recommended standards for companies participating in a proof-of-stake consensus protocol in an effort to reduce regulatory clampdowns on different networks.

The group met with members of the U.S. SEC earlier this year to discuss their proposals and discuss staking more broadly. The idea is entities that stake networks can be seen as service or infrastructure providers, rather than financial product providers.

We’re coming out with some industry-driven solutions around staking as a service which we believe will really help push the ecosystem forward.”

---

“With several services and pools of liquidity under one roof, Bequant is able to help institutional clients trade and expand their portfolios while keeping transaction costs low. Bequant is connected to 18 different sources of liquidity including seven crypto exchanges, and plans to have 30 by the end of 2020.

We are tailored to a lot of quant [hedge funds] and our clients typically look at trading through automated strategies, arbitrage, you name it.”

See Also: Polymath Eyes June Testnet Launch for New Blockchain Designed for Security Tokens

---

“The People’s Bank of China proposed a blockchain trade financing information platform for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.

Blockchain’s decentralized infrastructure makes third-party intervention unnecessary when sharing trade info between members. This makes for a highly secure foundation for a trade finance information platform.”

---

“As explained by Lucas Campbell, many decentralized finance protocols can be considered products with well-defined revenue streams. For example, Maker (MKR) makes money through the interest rates charged on its lending platform.

Pinpointing a project’s specific revenue allows analysts to re-introduce some metrics used to evaluate a stock’s price. One of the simplest measures is the price-earnings ratio, or PE.

Overall, many DeFi projects are valued at triple digits of their protocol’s revenue, an average that is strikingly close to those found in traditional markets.”

---

See Also: Ethereal Summit: Uniswap V2 (Video)

---

“More than 70,000 crypto-related suspicious activity reports (SARs) have been filed since 2013. Still, the figure represents just 0.59% of the more than 12 million reports FinCEN received between 2014 and 2019.

Around half of these reports were submitted by crypto companies themselves. FinCEN is also beginning to look closely at privacy coins and any company offering them.

We are increasingly concerned that businesses located outside the United States continue to try to do business with U.S. persons without complying with our rules.”

---

“The phone, called “Galaxy A Quantum”, has a quantum random number generation chipset. The blockchain-powered system is utilized when users pay for goods and services at offline merchants with the SK Pay.

Blockchain is also used to help prevent the falsification and theft of information stored on the phone. Another of the phone’s major features is SK Pay biometric protection — a mobile blockchain authentication service.”

“One thousand Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) were minted today on the Ethereum network (ETH) — a single transaction that represents more U.S dollar value than the entire Lightning Network.

It brings the total amount of Bitcoin now locked in WBTC tokens to 2,300, compared to the roughly 927 Bitcoin (BTC) locked on the Lightning Network.

Wrapped Bitcoin is an ERC-20 token that allows users to access popular ETH-based DeFi protocols using the value represented by their Bitcoin holdings.”

---

“According to a research paper, only 2% of transactions on the XRP ledger and 18% of transactions on Tezos (XTZ) lead to value transfers. During the period studied, 95% of transactions on EOS were related to the EIDOS token airdrop⁠ — a token that’s effectively worthless.

On Tezos, 82% of the transactions were involved in endorsing blocks. 18 accounts made 50% of all XRP transactions.“

---

“Andreessen Horowitz-backed dYdX released its Bitcoin Perpetual Contract, bringing the most liquid digital asset derivative to Ethereum’s burgeoning DeFi market for non-U.S. investors.

dYdX’s newest derivative will offer 10x leverage and no expiry, with margin and settlement conducted in USD Coin (USDC). The bitcoin contract will soon also be joined by ETH/USDC and DAI/USDC.

For the first time, users can trade the most popular financial product in crypto – BTC perpetual contracts – on a decentralized exchange.”

See Also: Introducing Strike — Decentralized Perpetual Swaps for Every Asset

---

“This integration demonstrates the power of OVM to deliver high-speed Ethereum transactions to supercharge the Synthetix trading experience.

The Optimism team has previously launched a demo with Uniswap at Devcon V in October 2019, which used a custom OVM. This new demo showcases a general alpha version of the OVM requiring no custom code, ahead of a launch later this year.”

See Also: Demo
See Also: Ethereal Summit: Preparing Ethereum for Mass Adoption (Video)

---

“The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is seeking third-party contractors to help it assess whether certain U.S. taxpayers have properly paid taxes on their crypto holdings.

According to the document, attached in full below, the contractors would have to look at both on-chain and off-chain data; information obtained through API keys, taxpayer submissions and other sources; determine the gains and losses for each taxpayer and note cost basis; track sales and other transactions; and find any inconsistencies in how the taxpayer is reporting their data.

Our dedication is 100% to our users. We have no plans of working with the government in this regard. [cryptotrader.tax]”

---

“The average block production time was roughly 7.5–8.5 minutes per block 24 hours prior to the halving, and we see an increase in block time post-halving, with an average of 11 minutes per block in the 12 hours following the halving.

With the available sample, we can safely conclude that the network has experienced a hash rate decline post-halving. The next difficulty change will happen in roughly six days.”

---

“What seems to be a fresh attempt to sway the Fed to take rates negative saw immediate backlash from sound-money supporters. Bitcoin (BTC) bulls were lambasting United States President Donald Trump this week as he called on the Federal Reserve to tax people’s savings.

Negative rates are not a gift. They are a transfer of wealth from savers to debtors.

As the Fed adopts a controlled Weimar strategy, Bitcoin just completed its third halving.”

---

“Cambodia’s DLT payments platform is designed to make it easier for Cambodia’s banks, E-wallet providers, and banking customers to transact with each other. Consumers will be able to make near instant payments via the platform, using a mobile app and QR codes.

There are 12 participating banks trialing the platform and it’s expected that all of the country’s financial institutions will join the platform.

We plan to go live in 2020, hopefully very soon.”

---

---

“Dr. Steven Waterhouse, a founding partner of Pantera Capital, says that his biggest regret as a VC is not investing in the Ethereum (ETH) Initial Coin Offering (ICO). [Waterhouse] explains how a Bitcoin maximalist bias led to the biggest mistake of his investment career.

Dr. Waterhouse still believes it to be the strongest project based on the number of developers involved. Ideological biases do not help make good investment decisions — Lesson learned.”

“Chainlink (Link) announced the launch of a verifiable random function (VRF) that enables generation of on-chain trusted randomness.

Choosing the right source of randomness is paramount in building secure and fair applications. Until now, even decentralized applications had to rely on a centralized source of randomness.”

---

“JPMorgan is now providing Coinbase and Gemini’s U.S. users with deposits and withdrawals via wire transfer and automated Clearing House (ACH) transactions. It’s also helping the exchanges with cash management services.

The move by JPMorgan is notable in a nation where banking services are hard to come by for any firms dealing with cryptocurrencies, which are viewed as a high risk by the banking industry. With cryptocurrency firms now accepted by a major bank, it’s possible other institutions may follow suit.

Banks not only have the ability, they have an obligation to serve all lawful businesses. They shouldn’t be discriminating because something’s a new technology.”

---

“The programs mean that the Fed, for the first time in its history, will buy ETFs to artificially maintain a semblance of normality in the market. The scale of the intervention saw pointed criticism almost as soon as it was unveiled.

The Federal Reserve is presently acting in blatant non-compliance with the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. An institution violating the rules of its own charter is de facto admitting that said institution has failed and is fundamentally broken.”

See Also: Erik Voorhees: Bitcoin will Replace the Fed’s ‘Pre-mined’ Dollar

---

“Despite concerns over mining after the halving, the health of the Bitcoin network remains excellent. The report points out that the hashrate has quickly recovered after the initial post-halving drop.“

See Also: New Cryptic Chinese Operation Instantly Becomes Sixth-Largest BTC Mining Pool

---

“We are now offering a service that allows certified copies of Marriage Licenses/Certificates to be emailed and received within minutes.

The pdf is digitally sealed by Titan Seal using a cryptographic hash on the Ethereum blockchain. The hash is a unique number that can only be generated from your certified copy of your Marriage License/Certificate.”

---

“Total assets under management in crypto funds grew from $1 billion in 2018 to more than $2 billion by the end of 2019. The average per fund also doubled, jumping from $21.9 million to $44 million. 

The report shows that of crypto hedge funds’ portfolios, 97% include Bitcoin trading, followed by 67% using Ethereum. The study found that crypto fund launches are highly correlated with the price of Bitcoin. When bitcoin price spiked in 2018, more funds were launched.”

---

“The value of assets for all stablecoins surpassed $10 billion Tuesday, having surged by over 70% in just two months. Most of the stablecoin growth comes from tether, which represents almost 90% of the total stablecoin supply.

Altcoin traders have historically preferred to use bitcoin or even ether as the currency that prices other tokens. But during the past two years, that trend has shifted significantly. Now they mostly trade against stablecoins. A growth in trading stablecoin quote pairs coincides with considerable overall growth in total altcoin trading volume.

Stablecoins have always had an edge over bitcoin as a base trading pair because of its inherent price stability.”

See Also: Tether USDT Surpasses XRP as the 3rd-Largest Cryptocurrency

---

“R3, the company behind distributed ledger technology (DLT) platform Corda, is edging ever closer to Ethereum. Under the new partnership, R3’s Corda software and “CorDapps” will run on Kaleido’s digital platform.

Kaleido provides so-called “consortium-as-a-service,” deploying blockchain networks via multiple cloud and hybrid platforms, and is working with the likes of Microsoft Azure and AWS.

Kaleido also plays host to the commodities-focused trade finance blockchain Komgo, which includes Citi, ING, MUFG Bank, Shell and others.”

See Also: Besu, the Marriage of Ethereum and Hyperledger

---

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“Chorzempa highlighted the domestic goals of China’s blockchain strategy, describing the BSN as a means for China to keep abreast of innovations within the distributed ledger technology sector while restricting the penetration of foreign firms and protecting against capital flight.

Another element of it is about control of the financial system. Alipay and WeChat Pay are now dominant retail payment providers in China.”

See Also: Mauritius Central Banker Confirms Island’s Digital Currency Plans
See Also: Bank of England: No Compromise on Our Principles for Any Future CBDC

---

“TON is officially dead. Telegram founder Pavel Durov wrote in his public channel Tuesday that the Telegram Open Network (TON) project would be discontinued due to the company’s ongoing legal fight with the U.S. SEC.

Durov did not say whether all investors would be immediately refunded or how much they’d receive. Durov referenced third-party efforts to launch independent versions of the TON blockchain, but said no Telegram employee is involved with these projects.

While networks based on the technology we built for TON may appear, we won’t have any affiliation with them and are unlikely to ever support them in any way. So be careful, and don’t let anyone mislead you.”

---

“I envision a world where a Kevin Hart token can trade for a LeBron James token can trade for a Serena Williams token, and because we are all our own business, each token will have its own perks attached to it.

You know there might be a 5% dividend. here could be a utility value, maybe Lebron James offering an exclusive camp only for his token holders.”

---

“The stream was blocked and deleted six hours and 42 minutes into a nearly finished program. The agenda mostly went off without a hitch — fintech luminaries like Tim Draper, Roger Ver, Meltem Demirors and many more shared their time and opinions.

The specific reason given for terminating the video feed is that our blockhalving coverage was “harmful or dangerous content” that violated YouTube’s community policy.

YouTube is notorious for bans and censorship of crypto-related content, and it’s driven a number of crypto content creators to competing platforms that operate on decentralized principles.”

Bitcoin Halving Arrives: Mining Rewards Drop for Third Time in History

“Miners produced the 630,000th block at 19:23 UTC on May 11, which triggered the programmed halving event, marking another milestone in the currency’s 11-year history. The first block in the new 6.25-bitcoin-per-block mining cycle was mined and relayed by China-based Antpool.

In an homage to Satoshi Nakamoto’s iconic “brink of a second bailout” message in the 2009 genesis block, f2pool, which mined the 629,999th block (the last before the halving), embedded a reference to the current financial crisis: ‘NYTimes 09/Apr/2020 With $2.3T Injection, Fed’s Plan Far Exceeds 2008 Rescue.'”

See Also: The State of Bitcoin 2020 (Delphi Digital Research)

---

“The new contracts, the first futures contracts for the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap in the U.S., will begin trading effective immediately, ErisX announced.

Starting today individual and institutional investors can access physically delivered futures contracts based on ETH-USD with monthly and quarterly expirations.

Physically-settled futures contracts deliver actual tokens upon expiry, rather than the fiat equivalent.”

See Also: Paradigm Researcher Unveils Fixed-Rate DeFi Lending Protocol

---

“Paul Tudor Jones II, a pioneer of the modern hedge fund industry, confirmed he has invested somewhere between 1% and 2% of his assets in bitcoin. Jones did not specify whether he invested in bitcoin futures or has custody of actual bitcoins.

We’re watching the birthing of a store of value, and whether that succeeds or not only time will tell.”

---

“A wholesale CBDC, restricted to a limited group of financial counterparties, would be largely business as usual. However, a retail CBDC, accessible to all, would be a game changer, so a retail CBDC is now our main focus.

We are currently looking into the legal questions raised by the potential use of intermediaries to facilitate the circulation of a CBDC and also the processing of transactions in a CBDC.

He acknowledged that the traceability of digital transactions would raise privacy concerns among a population used to paying for some things with paper notes.”

---

“In a world of inordinate tax evasion, trillions of dollars of laundered money around corruption and the drug trade, the last objective of government policy should be the promotion of anonymity with respect to large financial transactions.

His comments stand in contrast to those of fellow establishment figure Yves Mersch, a board member of the European Central Bank, who spoke sympathetically of the privacy concerns some have about potential digital versions of fiat currencies.

Some argue that a token-based digital currency might not guarantee complete anonymity. If that proved to be the case, it would inevitably raise social, political and legal issues.”

See Also: Leaders of the Digital Dollar Project Talk Privacy and the Next Century of Money
See Also: Zcash Alliance Aims to Bring Privacy Tech to Bitcoin, Cosmos and Ethereum

---

“Permissioned systems are most vulnerable to insider threats. Exploiting such a vulnerability is easy when you know where the nodes are.

Most private blockchains have very few nodes and, in many cases, they all reside inside a single cloud infrastructure, creating a single point of failure. That also means that far from being immutable stores of information, they are in fact easy to erase or shut down. You just write a simple script and send it to the nodes.

The fact that most private blockchains don’t enjoy the attention of a broad blockchain community is also a weakness.

Open source code that isn’t widely used and doesn’t have a vigilant community testing and inspecting it is far less secure and reliable than systems like Bitcoin and Ethereum, which are continuously hardened by nearly constant attack and public inspection.”

---

“The plug-in, called Crypto.com Pay Checkout, lets buyers pay with crypto for their products on e-commerce websites running on Ecwid, which the company claims are more than 1 million.

While they can receive the cryptocurrencies directly, they can also avoid exposing themselves to volatility by letting Crypto.com convert the money to United States dollars or euros.”

See Also: Crypto.com Lands Record $360M Insurance Cover for Offline Bitcoin Vaults
See Also: Canadian Exchange VirgoCX Taps Ledger Vault for Custody, Insurance Support

---

---

“Real estate tokens have continued to post a positive performance for investors, gaining an average of 4.27% during April while top securities tokens suffered losses for the month.

The losses suffered across the security token sector were broadly driven by a 16.5% drop in the price of tZERO — which represents 43% of the total industry capitalization. Trade volume for tZERO fell by more than half.”

See Also: Looks Like the Loom Network Has Thrown in the Towel

**ETA: 11 May 2020 22:46 UTC**
(This will change – Check link for up-to-date time)

---

“The proof-of-stake aspect of the much anticipated Ethereum 2.0 network upgrade could be live as early as July 2020, according to Ben Edgington of Teku—an Eth 2.0 client operator.

Beacon is the beginning of the road. It’s a proof-of-stake chain that sustains itself. It could arrive in weeks to months… But I am 80-90 percent confident it will go live by Q3.

That means users can help secure the network by staking their coins (locking their coins up) on Ethereum 2.0, and in return receive regular payouts relative to the amount staked.

The next milestone in Ethereum 2.0’s roadmap is Phase 1. This involves implementing sharding, and creating 64 shards with a data capacity of 500 kb each. For some context, blocks on the current single Ethereum chain are around 25 kb. This allows a lot more transactions to be processed on the network.

Phase 1.5 will see Eth 1.0 merged with Eth 2.0—and the current Ethereum blockchain will become one of the shards in the newly formed 64-shard Ethereum 2.0.

Phase 2.0 is where the various applications and networks on the Eth 2.0 chain begin to communicate. These applications could be wildly different in nature, and could include the likes of Libra, UTXO blockchains (like Bitcoin), and will also contain the old chain, Eth 1.0.”

See Also: Prysmatic Labs Client Update
See Also: Ethereum Staking, Not Bitcoin Halving is #1 Reason for Crypto Bull Run in 2020 (Video)

---

“Over the past two days, 200+ developers, entrepreneurs, enterprise veterans, and leading industry minds came together for the Ethereal Virtual Summit.

1. The COVID-19 economic shocks are waking people up to the potential of digital assets. Many people, the crypto community especially, see the current global economic crisis as a wakeup call for system change. ‘COVID is the brush fire that is making way for the green shoots to come up.‘
2. Ethereum 2.0 Phase 0 is the most anticipated network development of 2020. The Ethereum Foundation introduced the Ethereum 2.0 Launchpad, the EF’s official way to deposit your ETH for Eth2. ‘Eth2 will drop transaction costs by a factor of 100, allowing more operations to take place at lower cost.’
3. Ethereum 1.0 has big scaling solutions in order. The SKALE Network is an elastic blockchain network of sidechains that are compatible with the Ethereum mainnet and can run up to 2,000 transactions per second per chain. The team plans to launch the SKALE testnet this month.
4. “Enterprise Ethereum” is just Ethereum with the privacy and compliance add-ons that enterprises need.
5. Dapp users are running businesses straight out of their Ethereum wallets. With robust scaling solutions like SKALE on the horizon, MetaMask mobile in the works, and the novel economics of Ethereum-based games, the dapp ecosystem is poised to take off this year.
6. Security is top of mind for DeFi.“

---

Recommended read.

1. “Ethereum 2 phase 0;
2. EIP-1559;
3. The end of mining; and
4. Ethereum 2 phase 2.

The move to proof of stake engendered by the launch of Ethereum 2 has an immediate and large impact on issuance, but it is a one-off. In contrast, EIP-1559 has a relatively small initial impact on issuance, but this scales with the number of transactions processed on the Ethereum network.

As the number of transactions increases over time issuance will continue to fall, with the possibility that issuance falls below 0 and Ether moves in to the territory of negative inflation for the first time.

The long term expectation is for Ether inflation to lie between 0.5% and -0.5%, whilst retaining and even improving security; this shows that Ethereum has a path forward to secure transactions without incurring large internal and external costs.”

---

---

“Borrow + Trade = Margin Trading. Those two money verbs allow you to amplify your gains and your losses on trades. We’re going to cover how to margin trade in DeFi.

We’ll focus on dYdX, the largest and most established non-custodial margin trading tool. dYdX is powered by smart contracts on Ethereum eliminating the need to trust a centralized exchange to custody your assets while trading.“

---

Good read.

“The absence of mainstream inflation seems incongruous, even frustrating, to people – including many in the crypto community – who assume rampant central-bank money printing will destroy consumers’ spending power. They are looking, he says, in the wrong place: QE inflation will manifest not in the prices of everyday things but in assets owned by the wealthiest in society. Like stocks. And Picassos.

That’s where I think the ‘money printer go brrrrr’ meme is confusing a lot of people. Because they are looking at the CPI bucket and you’re not going to see it there.

What ordinary people most want, presumably, is a share in that sweet asset inflation that wealthy art collectors and stock investors enjoy. One strategy for achieving that may lie with a brand new digital asset class. I’m talking, of course, about cryptocurrencies.

Now, for the first time, we have digital scarcity.”

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“The government of South Korea’s planned city Sejong — which is the country’s testing ground for major smart city solutions — announced Friday that it will be establishing a blockchain-based platform for storing and verifying the digital identities of self-driving vehicles.

This could help prevent the illegal cloning of identities or hacking of self-driving vehicles.

The blockchain-based technology platform will greatly increase the credibility of data by strengthening the security of information shared by cars and their control tower.”

See Also: China Telecom: Blockchain Has Significant Use-Cases for 5G

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“New Zealand’s monetary authority is looking for a “Head of Money and Cash,” a new position that will be ‘focused on the future of money.‘

The new role will be a digital currency specialist who can speak to trends reshaping financial infrastructure – ‘online payments and digital currencies‘ – and provide ‘thought leadership around the future of cash and money.‘

This is a time of change for both the Reserve Bank and the global market transforming the demand and use of physical cash. New and emerging forms of digital payments are here to stay and the method in which people pay for things is changing rapidly.”

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“Over the past month, CME’s bitcoin futures market has grown faster than nearly every other bitcoin futures market on a percentage and real growth basis. Soaring CME open interest coincides with news that prominent American hedge funds are interested in investing in bitcoin futures.

The recent massive growth in regulated futures markets suggests growing institutional interest in bitcoin as an emerging macro hedge against money printing and geopolitical uncertainties.”

See Also: Open Positions on Bitcoin Options Pass $1B for First Time
See Also: New Bull Market Signal? Bitcoin Bearwhale Vanishes as BTC Hits $10K (Interesting read)

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“Developers can now access the tools needed to manage a full-scale Enterprise Ethereum network through Microsoft’s Azure marketplace.

The PegaSys Ethereum Suite, which includes ​Hyperledger Besu,​​ PegaSys Plus​ and PegaSys Orchestrate​, will help developers deploy multi-node networks with blockchain explorers, monitoring and dashboards.

The Azure allure draws in thousands of potential developers to build within the blockchain ecosystem by providing them with development kits necessary for constructing web 3.0 infrastructure.”

See Also: Introducing Immutable X

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“Back at the first Ethereal…I was hoping central bankers could kick the can down the road another five or 10 years and enable us to build more. And I’m not sure we’re going to have that luxury anymore with COVID and the [global economic] crisis.

I wanted a lot more time to build, to mature the technology, and I’m not sure we have a lot more time. I think we have to get busy now. [Joe Lubin]

Stuff happens that you can’t believe from before—like oil trading at minus $40…Nobody thinks the dollar is really going to lose its reserve status. It could. And it could—faster than we think.”

See Also: Vitalik Buterin: How Ethereum will Help Heal the World

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“The Grid facilitates the tokenization of new and existing debt securities and funds. The Global Stock Exchange group, or GSX, also plans to launch equities during the second phase of its roll-out.

GSX operates offices and trading venues in Gibraltar, London, SIngapore, and Hong Kong. The firm envisions that its tokenized securities ecosystem will expand to offer ‘pan-jurisdictional interoperability.'”

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“Over 20,000 shops and enterprises in Venezuela will reportedly start accepting crypto by June 1. Venezuela’s hyperinflation rate hit 10 million percent at some point last year.

The Mega Soft platform will now accept Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Dash (DASH), Litecoin (LTC), Tether (USDT), and dozens of other cryptocurrencies. When asked whether the new system supports Petro, the Cryptobuyer CEO replied that it is not something they have contemplated thus far.

The use of cash like US Dollars is complicated by many times not having the necessary change at the time of a purchase.”

“Jones’ Tudor BVI Global Fund has been authorized to hold as much as ‘a low single-digit percentage exposure percentage‘ of its assets in bitcoin futures. The firm manages $38 billion.

A low-single-digit percentage of Tudor Investment Corp.’s assets invested in bitcoin futures would be equivalent to nearly all open interest in CME bitcoin futures contracts at the time of publication.

Unprecedented central bank monetary policy amid the coronavirus crisis is a primary reason for Jones’ interest in bitcoin. What he referred to as the ongoing “Great Monetary Inflation” left him, a market veteran, speechless. It’s an ‘unprecedented expansion of every form of money unlike anything the developed world has ever seen,’ Jones wrote to his clients.

But Jones sees the the most compelling argument for investing in Bitcoin as ‘the coming digitization of currency everywhere, accelerated by Covid-19.'”

See Also: Bitcoin Breaches $10K for First Time Since February

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“Schlesi is the first multi-client testnet for Eth 2.0’s beacon chain with the intention to show that ‘clients are ready to support a potential beacon-chain mainnet.’ The launch of the beacon chain is the first tangible application of Eth 2.0 under the title “Phase 0.”

As of April 27, two teams – the Lighthouse client from developer Sigma Prime and Prysm from Prysmatic Labs – have synced and are actively validating the network. Nimbus, a mobile client version of Eth 2.0 for use in small hardware devices, and PegaSys’s Teku have also successfully synced with the network. Eight teams are currently working on Eth 2.0 clients.“

See Also: Eth2 Quick Update #11
See Also: Ethereal Summit: Day 1 (Video)

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“The standard, called IVMS101, defines a uniform model for data that must be exchanged by virtual asset service providers (VASPs) alongside cryptocurrency transactions. The standard will identify the pseudonymous senders and receivers of crypto payments.

Getting industry players to agree upon an interoperable data standard is a significant step towards a more regulated crypto space. The standard messaging format now needs to be incorporated into the various solutions being built by VASPs to meet Travel Rule requirements.”

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“Called Free TON, the fork comes after the group decided not to wait until Telegram is able clear the regulatory hurdles it faces before it can officially send TON live. To distinguish itself from the original TON project, this forked version is named Free TON, and its tokens are called “ton crystals,” not “grams.”

Telegram was not involved in the launch. ‘It’s an independent launch of the open-source software. The network must not be censored, it must go to the world.’

As a fork of TON, Free TON will have nothing to do with Telegram’s obligation to distribute tokens to investors in its $1.7 billion token sale. ‘It’s also very cool to launch a network with just validators and developers and having the vast majority of tokens controlled by a community pool, as opposed to investors. It’s a great experiment.‘”

See Also: Telegram Founder Bashes US as a ‘Police State’ Amid Free TON Launch

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“The CoinDesk 50 is our selection of the most innovative, consequential and viable projects. Together, these organizations promise another internet revolution.

Today, we reveal the first 10 names.”

See Also: Cosmos and the Dream of Anti-Maximalism

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“A Chainlink (Link) node provider is launching an “unstoppable” domain with oracalized crypto price feeds.

Vulcan Link is placing Chainlink’s crypto price feeds on a “.crypto” domain. The domains are sold by Unstoppable Domains and reside on the Ethereum blockchain which should make them censorship-resistant.“

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“Justin Sun’s Tron platform, which maintains the Tron blockchain, has received US government aid of more than $2 million in coronavirus relief.

On Twitter the news was greeted with outrage.

Many US businesses have so far encountered roadblocks getting federal assistance, and some questioned the grounds for awarding Tron emergency funding.”

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“The Filecoin Foundation is inviting anyone to join its “mission to improve the internet.” The new program is called Filecoin Discover, and it is seeding the file storage network early with what Filecoin calls “verified datasets.”

This data will be delivered to future miners physically, on eight-terabyte hard drives, with instructions on how to link the devices to the Filecoin system, which should go live this year.

Each hard drive will cost $265 but presumably future Filecoin miners expect storing that much data will ultimately be worth the upfront cost in fiat.”